Ian Williams celebrates his most lucrative season and believes there are 'great opportunities' in the programme book

Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot-winning trainer Ian Williams has made 2024 his most prosperous of a 28-year career by specifically targeting events like the Racing League, Sunday Series and Shergar Cup.

Williams on Saturday surpassed the £1,006,956 in total prize-money he amassed in 2018 domestically on the Flat, with the dual-purpose trainer also just eight winners short of the 66 managed that year – with over three months of the year left.

He said: “There are a lot of moans about prize-money, but there are great opportunities in the programme book if they’re sourced, targeted and used. It’s important for us and our clients because ultimately prize-money helps pay the bills.

“When you’ve got opportunities like the Shergar Cup and Racing League, they might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they should be embraced because of the prize-money they offer. You can see in our totals the difference it can make, and hopefully it’ll continue to do so.

“We’ve always followed the dollar as it were, whether that’s to Yarmouth, Bahrain or Australia, and sometimes it’s better to be placed in a good race than win a lesser one, certainly financially. The returns can be far better.”

In order to best target the opportunities, Williams evaluated all the horses in his yard. He added: “You have to have the horses able to do it, and we’ve been very fortunate this year to have a good crop of handicappers to go to war with.

“You have to be specific in the horses you run because there’s no point running horses who aren’t capable, so we’ve gone through the whole yard and identified the horses who could do the job for us. It’s very important to have the right horses doing the right things."

It is an approach Williams does not plan on stopping through the winter months. He said: “You’ve got the all-weather bonus scheme this winter, plus Bahrain and Dubai, depending on what they do, so as long as we have the horses to make the most of the opportunities and the clients willing to let us do that with their horses, then we’ll keep doing it.”

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